HDV to SD - DVD

Hello, I wasn't sure if I should post this in DVD authoring or Compression techniques so I decided to post it here since FCP could be helpful in what im trying to do as well.

Currently, I am working on a project in Final Cut. The project format is HDV 1080i60, 1440x1080. I am trying to figure out a way of getting good results for burning DVDs. When my project is complete, I am going to recapture all of my footage in DV and just replace the files, however as of right now I need another solution temporarily. I need to make some screening DVDs but at the same time I want to try to get the best quality as possible. I am using Compressor. From FCP, I exported a .MOV with current settings and popped it into Compressor where I used their presets for Best Quality 90 Minute DVD. After Compressor finished however, but before I continued to burn a DVD, I decided to check out the file Compressor gave me and watch it. Upon viewing it, I can see all of the interlaced lines. So I have two questions before I go ahead and burn the DVD to test because its a lengthy file.

1) Should I be seeing these lines? And if I continue to burn will I see them on my DVD's playback?

2) Should I change my field Dominance in Compressor? Im giving Compressor a HDV file which of course is Upper field dominance. Should I change the Field Dominance in Compressor's encoder to Lower since I'm essentially creating a SD file for DVD burning? Also, what about Frame Control? Should I use this and change the output field to Lower?

Thanks!
Doug

(PS - I know I should have just tested it with 1 or 2 minute samples of my sequence however I am limited on DVDs at the moment and would like to figure this out asap)

First your idea of replacing with DV files is great, you know what your doing in FCP. BUT you don't have to go through that hassle. To me it sounded like you recorded in HD captured in HD, edited HD, want to recapture after it's approved in DV. Am I correct?
If so this is way to many steps you have compressor it's an incredibly powerful program. DO NOT export a .mov. Never do that in my opinion. Open your fcp and and select your project in timeline. Right click it and export using compressor, fun fact if you have to tight deadline deselect self contained export that compressor reads the encode faster but not as stable. You want to do export to compressor because then your machine dedicated certain ram & processing power to make it a better quality and to avoid problems, jump frames, interlacing when not suppose to be... and on.
Direct from timeline much more stable = better quality. Put your Best or regular compression for DVD. Best= 2 pass encode Good=1 pass. In inspector select the quality and make your bit rate highest as possible. NOW depending on length of your project you could pick highest & won't fit on disk. So bring up your bit rate and go back to general and it calculates your size. The default encodes are exactly that DEFAULT always go through and change the quality to highest possible that will fit on disc, leave little room for audio.
Also go to your gop structure, all this is in second tab within that window. Change the gop to lowest amount and you want IPB not IPPPPB, point being smaler gop structure higher quality.

You have interlacing in your encodes because your previewing on a computer screen. I export my 1920-1080 and have interlacing because these screens are not set up to display that. So no don't change your interlacing. You could also be seeing that because when you export full .mov you loose compressors ability to deeply analyze the project and dedicate the proper processes to it. Export from fcp to compressor then EVERY frame is analyzed and compressor will properly make changes that it can't see with full MOV. Example being from timeline to compressor, now compressor will analyze every cut point and make that an I frame. Which will automatically make it a better quality because more I frames is better. A full export of .mov doesn't give compressor that ability.

Hello. Yes replacing the files with DV makes the most sense instead of trying to mess around with compression settings. & more yes yes that is what i am doing (films hd, captured, etc). And yes normally I do export from FCP into Compressor but I was trying the whole "export a .mov and drop it into Compressor" to save some time. However, quality is what I'm going for so I will go back to exporting straight into Compressor.

However, one question. In Compressor, for GOP settings, I can't change any of the GOP settings. All of the settings are grayed out and can not be selected or clicked. Hmm.

Ok great! Actually I was trying to say that the swapping of footage is not necessary. One thing that you'll have is timecode differences. Unless you have done it many time, which I have and still have problems. Final Cut is not great at doing what you are planning. It looks at HD and DV differently and unless you have all your setting impeccably set up you are in a world of hurt. The most efficient way of doing it is to rename the folder in capture scratch this way fcp can't see it. Then to select time footage in your bin and mass capture. Major problem tho it will kick back because it dosen't understand you want to capture hd footage now as dv. It will say no no need HD deck. There is no way to modify the original files to make it work. The only way you should do it is to print out your footage time codes. You can select your timeline and have it in txt document display all the time codes. Then through your deck log. As you know logging is a bitch. You can log the entire thing 100% correct and it captures five clips and the rest says can't find timecode.

Basically as a Apple Trainer & Master Pro, I 100% suggest against that method, I promise you it'll be so much time wasted in frustration. Unless you are very experienced and if so you know the world of hassle that's going to happen. If you want to preserve full quality going down to dv.

I have another way that's easier and less headache.

First exporting self contained file then bringing into compressor often actually works out longer than if done through fcp to compressor. The only quicker way to compress is exporting un-self contained. This puts out a .mov but doesn't have footage in it. What it is a hard file timeline in the sense that only fcs programs can read it and it's just pointer to the footage. For example even though its exported if you changed a file name it would come unconnected in the .mov non self contained. I highly suggest doing the non-self contained it encoded surprisingly faster than the other methods. But then again you are loosing some info. The advantage is compressor will still see chapter markers and I frames on a non self contained transcode.

Now the easier way to preserve quality. Go to your capture scratch of the footage and batch compress it to ProRes422 this would take just as long as recapturing in lower quality and won't give reconnect issues. Reconnect everything. In final cut make a new timeline in DV NTSC 16:9. Do not hit conform timeline when you put footage in. Paste the footage into the DV timeline. Now you will have images 1000 times bigger than the canvas window. Click the first clip in the sequence hit W to show wireframe, hold shift+command and downsize the image. Now you crushed a huge file to DV 16:9 size and image quality is preserved its like taking a vectored jpeg and making it small it becomes more detailed. Now select that clip in timeline and command+c to copy. Select all your other video clips AFTER that modified one with marquee tool and right click>paste attributes> select distortion only and hit enter. Now it changed all the files to what you made the first clip in three clicks. Now change your graphics manually. You could do this with out the prores conversion but if you have time pro res is beautiful because it can be modified over and over, this is what apple made it for to be repeatedly compressed.

Now you have HD footage in DV timeline. This preserves quality amazingly. Compressor changes the overall image down to dv and looses quality. Now you took a massive file, squished it down, and exported in native timeline settings. BANG you'll have much better quality after you do what I said with the original post.

This is much simpler and less headache than recapture in lower quality. Final Cut just fuc*ing blows at doing that. Everytime I have it causes issues. I had a tv show all captured and done but the media drive fried. I pulled up autosave vault opened it up and batch captured the footage in same settings in same exact timeline and it causes so many frigging issues. I used captured it no controlled and manually put it in was quicker than dealing with recapture because for some reason final cut sucks at preserving the timecode metadata during reconnecting.

[Grant Strac]"You want to do export to compressor because then your machine dedicated certain ram & processing power to make it a better quality and to avoid problems, jump frames, interlacing when not suppose to be... and on.
Direct from timeline much more stable = better quality. Put your Best or regular compression for DVD. Best= 2 pass encode Good=1 pass. In inspector select the quality and make your bit rate highest as possible. NOW depending on length of your project you could pick highest & won't fit on disk. So bring up your bit rate and go back to general and it calculates your size. The default encodes are exactly that DEFAULT always go through and change the quality to highest possible that will fit on disc, leave little room for audio.
Also go to your gop structure, all this is in second tab within that window. Change the gop to lowest amount and you want IPB not IPPPPB, point being smaler gop structure higher quality."

Grant, even if you may have to write to a dual layer disc, CBR will give you the best quality, VBR can cause spikes which will look bad on your final product.
Changing the GOP structure may/will cause problems on some DVD players, and doesn't do much to improve quality.
BTW you must have a very powerful Mac to do your method. What are your specs?

I have three mac's I edit with but my main machine is MacPro 8 core Intel 22gb ram 4 2tb drives. It is set up with four boots. One with lion for my personal use & fcs x, one boot with leopard fsc 1, one with snow leopard for fcs 2, and lion for fcs3. This is for all my clients. But I have old iMac and year old MBP which both handle my work as well.

Also I would disagree with your statement about VBR and GOP. I have never heard or had top cause issues with dvd players. GOP is something specifically designed for dvd only. Ever since I was taught by Apple Master Trainer to do what I said to do four years ago I have never had issue. Gop is important because the smaller it is the more information put on each frame. If you have 10 i frames in the encode or 100 that means it will have all the information on 100 frames rather than half the information over a large top structure. It doesn't add much size it just means that many more frames have full information it needs.

Gop is IpppbI then only two frames have full information in that frame then the encoder "fudges" the information between the I's and there is half or less information in that gap. Bad analogy but best way to explain without the full details. If you have IpbI successively then more quality

Your comment about cbr or vbr is almost correct. I didn't even mention it as advice because it's minuscule difference between the two. In either selection you still get high bit rate one just decides that in less image intensive sections to put less information so it has more room for the image intensive scenes. It automatically chooses how much information to put into the frames that need more than others, like a fade in & out will be less so the next scene can have more. This way you save space on disc. But he needed advice to preserve quality and these details will add more quality but insignificant to his needs. I do appreciate your insight

[Grant Strac]"I have three mac's I edit with but my main machine is MacPro 8 core Intel 22gb ram 4 2tb drives. It is set up with four boots. One with lion for my personal use & fcs x, one boot with leopard fsc 1, one with snow leopard for fcs 2, and lion for fcs3. This is for all my clients. But I have old iMac and year old MBP which both handle my work as well.

Also I would disagree with your statement about VBR and GOP. I have never heard or had top cause issues with dvd players. GOP is something specifically designed for dvd only. Ever since I was taught by Apple Master Trainer to do what I said to do four years ago I have never had issue. Gop is important because the smaller it is the more information put on each frame. If you have 10 i frames in the encode or 100 that means it will have all the information on 100 frames rather than half the information over a large top structure. It doesn't add much size it just means that many more frames have full information it needs.

Gop is IpppbI then only two frames have full information in that frame then the encoder "fudges" the information between the I's and there is half or less information in that gap. Bad analogy but best way to explain without the full details. If you have IpbI successively then more quality

Your comment about cbr or vbr is almost correct. I didn't even mention it as advice because it's minuscule difference between the two. In either selection you still get high bit rate one just decides that in less image intensive sections to put less information so it has more room for the image intensive scenes. It automatically chooses how much information to put into the frames that need more than others, like a fade in & out will be less so the next scene can have more. This way you save space on disc. But he needed advice to preserve quality and these details will add more quality but insignificant to his needs. I do appreciate your insight.
"

thanks Grant, this stuff really belongs on the DVDSP forum, however, lets go on.
22GB of RAM is above most editors, what are the minimum specs that you have tried this on, your other machines? I would suspect that RAM is the limiting factor.
If we are talking replication (molded discs) the bit-rate can be close to the maximum limit, it's a matter of reflectivity. If you're producing in this realm VBR in Compressor is going to spike, CBR not.
now if you talking CinemaCraft...
Fiddling with GOP among other things, is also going to present space problems, and your bit-rate calculator is not your friend anymore, making coasters and eventually going to DVD9s (dual layer)

Alexander, I deeply apologize for my long delay. I had a motion graphic commercial I was contracted for and it had very short delivery turn around. I was locked in a room for couple days.

My other machines are much less powerful. My macbook pro has 4gb of Ram, dual core 2.66 mhz, 256mb video card. My iMac is much older it's the last enervation of the white casing right before it went aluminum. Still a kickass machine 3gb ram, 128mb video card (I think), Dual core intel. So it works on less powerful machines just takes longer.

The limiter in encoding time is Ram, defiantly when I got my MacPro and had 8 gb of ram when I encoded my DSLR footage in a 1 minute commercial it took quite some time. Now with 22gb it is ridiculous how fast it is. I always suggest if have iMac or MacPro to go max on Ram because in all the suites programs it is very helpful to operation and cheap depending on generation.

I could not comment on the cinema craft because I only use the Apple Suite programs to complete my tasks just because that's what I was taught in my master pro course. I've never had a problem with GOP in replication. I worked at TV studio for five years two of them I never changed GOP the final three I did and never had a spit back. The only time DVDSP has given me replication problems is if I changed any of the Region settings which was weird. I was told that's because the replication machines are set to make all and automatically spit back anything other than all regions.

Adjusting your GOP will do you no good and adds extra unneeded I frames. Only times Ive ever adjusted GOP structures was back in the day when we either had to set a DL break point on a certain area or had a multi-angle project. Alexander is very much on the mark with VBR encodes in Compressor. Compressor is notorious for bitrates spikes. But this all depends on the length of your program. If you can go with a straight CBR of about 6mb/s then that is the advice weve given around here for years.

As with any encode, I always advice check your bitrates with a analyzer...many are free.

BTW....Compressor is know as the worst encoder on planet in the world of professional DVD production....so just a small heads up there :)

Also down converting is an important process here. These are the methods Ive used for years...but its PC only

Well we both are here to help Alex. We obviously have our difference of opinions. I could say I disagree and offer reasons why and you could do the same as we have been but this doesn't help the forum users. For our personal delivery needs obviously it works for you and I. I appreciate your insight but I'm not here to talk outside of what the needs of the original poster are. I thank you for your opinions it made me analyze my stream of thought.

[Grant Strac]"I have three mac's I edit with but my main machine is MacPro 8 core Intel 22gb ram 4 2tb drives. It is set up with four boots. One with lion for my personal use & fcs x, one boot with leopard fsc 1, one with snow leopard for fcs 2, and lion for fcs3. This is for all my clients. But I have old iMac and year old MBP which both handle my work as well.

Also I would disagree with your statement about VBR and GOP. I have never heard or had top cause issues with dvd players. GOP is something specifically designed for dvd only. Ever since I was taught by Apple Master Trainer to do what I said to do four years ago I have never had issue. Gop is important because the smaller it is the more information put on each frame. If you have 10 i frames in the encode or 100 that means it will have all the information on 100 frames rather than half the information over a large top structure. It doesn't add much size it just means that many more frames have full information it needs.

Gop is IpppbI then only two frames have full information in that frame then the encoder "fudges" the information between the I's and there is half or less information in that gap. Bad analogy but best way to explain without the full details. If you have IpbI successively then more quality

Your comment about cbr or vbr is almost correct. I didn't even mention it as advice because it's minuscule difference between the two. In either selection you still get high bit rate one just decides that in less image intensive sections to put less information so it has more room for the image intensive scenes. It automatically chooses how much information to put into the frames that need more than others, like a fade in & out will be less so the next scene can have more. This way you save space on disc. But he needed advice to preserve quality and these details will add more quality but insignificant to his needs. I do appreciate your insight.
"

thanks Grant, this stuff really belongs on the DVDSP forum, however, lets go on.
22GB of RAM is above most editors, what are the minimum specs that you have tried this on, your other machines? I would suspect that RAM is the limiting factor.
If we are talking replication (molded discs) the bit-rate can be close to the maximum limit, it's a matter of reflectivity. If you're producing in this realm VBR in Compressor is going to spike, CBR not.
now if you talking CinemaCraft...
Fiddling with GOP among other things, is also going to present space problems, and your bit-rate calculator is not your friend anymore, making coasters and eventually going to DVD9s (dual layer)